It's been a while since we caught up with Stallman. But a couple months ago we took a look around at what's happening with law, politics and technology and realized that he maybe perhaps his extremism and paranoia were warranted all along. So when we were contacted by an Iranian Linux publication and asked if we would like to publish an English translation of a recent interview they had done with Stallman, I thought that it was a particularly rich opportunity.

Using handcuffs as an analogy is rather ironic to me - handcuffs are a tool used to inhibit a person's ability to resist. DRM doesn't inhibit this at all, if anything it has the opposite effect (it ends up promoting the exact behavior your imply it deters - primarily because it doesn't work and everyone knows it).

It's not so much that DRM doesn't work, but that it works against those who actually follow the rules (ie, the lawful customers). DRM actually makes the lives of the very customers they are trying to keep just a little bit harder.

DRM servers go down ... paying customers can no longer access their [music|app|game|whatever] ... but the "pirates" can.

All the unskippable crap on DVDs/Blu-rays protected by DRM and other encryption just drive people nuts, to the point where they get fed up with it, and decide to download movies instead of (or, possibly, in addition to) buying them.

And so on. DRM only hurts paying customers. It doesn't hurt the "pirates". Which is completely bassackwards!

The problem with DRM is that it is mandated by law if you want to work with DRMed formats like DVD-Video and Bluray-Movie. Even software like Ubuntu is forced to include or recommend DRMed software (LinDVD) in order to legally ship to the US.

DRM doesn't have to do with proprietary or free software, get over it already. It's something the US effectively mandated with the DMCA, for proprietary AND free software, if they want to work with DRMed formats. Microsoft has already said that the reason their Media Center respects CGMS-A is because the law requires it, and the reason they did Protected Video Path was so that windows software can work with Bluray-Movie.

Outside the US, there are proprietary and open source DRM-free software DVD players. Here in Europe, there are DRM-free hardware DVD players too (yes! imported from China).